Steven N.“Parental rights need to be strengthened more with regard to protecting children,” the Ministry of Justice’s state secretary in Parliament said in an interview with Mandiner. Róbert Répássy added:
Some proposals may even be put on the National Assembly agenda in the summer session that implement the aims of the [“child protection”] refendum in practice, that is, keeping LGBTQ propaganda away from children, kindergartens, and schools.
In addition, “it will also become clear from these rules that the purpose of the referendum was not to attack sexual minorities,” he said.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office was also mentioned in the interview. Hungary has not joined the European-wide office, but Répássy believes that joining the organization “would not have helped the fight against corruption” at all.
“This body is so bureaucratic that Member State authorities can deal with such crimes much more effectively,” he said. [444]
The “child protection” theme goes down well in Hungary. It looks likely to succeed the”Soros” theme.
Again, the state monopoly in media proves effective.
Répássy speaking on behalf of himself and the regime has very nicely engaged in a Freudian slip i.e. linking up the all purpose scapegoat, LGBT individuals, with a rejection of fighting corruption via joining the EU Public Prosecutors Office. In other words, the ongoing assault on LGBT individuals is about obscuring the regimes ongoing theft. The usual scapegoats, Migrants, Soros/Jews and of course, Ukrainians have either been overused, thereby losing their effectiveness and/or are too risky for the regime to use. For now, LGBT individuals are the best current scapegoat albeit mentioning corruption in the same breath conveys this regime’s real concern, obfuscation of it’s corrupt hands. Thanks for this short story.
I disagree with Misi: I don’t think this is a decoy from corruption issues. In my experience Hungarians are well aware that corruption is rampant but, depressingly, they just don’t care. If this is a distraction from anything, it is a way to take people’s minds off the rapidly worsening economic situation.
Hello Alex, I would agree with you that the attack on LGBT people is also a “decoy ” from the “worsening economic situation”. Of course, the Mafia State (Magyar Balint) is part of the cause of the worsening economic situation. The great economist, Kornai Janos commented, regarding the communist regime, that it was impossible to ever “fix” given the fundamental flaws of communism. In “Stubborn Structures, Reconceptualizing Post Communist Regimes”(edited by Magyar Balint) he updated his insights with application to regimes such as the Orban regime. It is impossible for an anti free market regime that is also corrupt to fix a worsening economic situation. For example, when EU funding is channeled away from needed infrastructure fixes, secondary to corruption, we can see the results in every day life. Scapegoats are important to divert attention from the intertwined corruption and worsening economic situation. However, you may be correct about many Hungarians not caring about corruption, let alone use of scapegoats.Thanks for your comment. Please forgive my English keyboard.